


Contact

by theironrunt



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcoholism, Angst, Asexual Romance, Bad Geography, Gavin bullies Nines, Hank is depressed, I'm trying, M/M, Markus is dead, Needles, Nines bullies Gavin, North is dead, Philosophy, Post Machine-Connor Ending, Road Trips, Slow Burn, Unwanted Deviancy, antagonist Hank
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-10-25 02:36:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17716448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theironrunt/pseuds/theironrunt
Summary: On March 14th, 2039, 200,000 RK900s are deployed across the country. Their objective: to identify and eliminate every last deviant still at large.Nines is stationed at the DCPD, tasked with picking up where his prototype left off.Connor completed his mission. Contractually - and probably morally - he should be dead. But he's not. He's worse: sentient.





	1. Chapter 1

**MAR 14,** 2039 | AM **09:01:** 08

Captain Fowler's voice carried with ease over the heads of his dumbstruck staff. The RK900, serial #313-248-317 - 87, stood impassive by his side. This morning, hundreds of thousands of his duplicates were being unleashed on sidewalks and police stations country-wide. Branded "Deviant Detectors" by the preceding ad campaign, they represented both Cyberlife's remorse, and its sweeping return to industry power. At least, that was the idea. Though he was careful to meet the eyes of no one, he'd have to be malfunctioning to miss the distinct lack of enthusiasm from the policepeople before him.

It was proceeding much more favorably on the streets, no doubt. The public would be apprehensive at first - Cyberlife had, for reasons admittedly unknown to him, been cagey at best with information prior to release - but quickly come to feel comfort in the fact that they no longer had to worry about deviancy. That androids could once more become part of their everyday. Status quo restored, the revolution would begin to look a less and less significant blemish on US history.

Of course, the RK900 wasn't _actually_ capable of Detecting Deviants. While it did possess the unparalleled ability to diagnose emotional states from the most minute of symptoms, Deviancy itself could not be scanned for: only identified through context clues and behaviour. If a deviant chose to wear its uniform and obey its owner's orders, it was concievable for its true nature to go as undetected by an RK900 as by a civilian. But as it was still illegal for androids to be owned by civillians, this particular situation was a nonissue. Broadcasting the whole truth was hardly worth the trouble.

Here, though, the reception to the rollout was quite a few shades icier than skeptical. Barring the obvious cases of anti-android postulating, there were several possible reasons for this: in the pockets of the room where confusion dominated (showing itself in wandering gazes, frequent shifts in posture or absent fidgeting), they were most likely to be unresolved feelings as to the interruption of a non-violent deviant uprising, and the fact that the RK800 protoype had spent its major field test at this very department. RK900 #313-248-317 - 87 was not unaware of their models' aesthetic similarity. Perhaps some were struggling to separate them.

His likeness to the Connor model also appeared to be a source of aggravation for a small number of officers; a source of melancholy for others. And there was one, in the back row, whose emotional state he struggled to classify. One moment Lt. Hank Anderson's facial and body language coveyed bemusement, the next, frustration, and the next, grief, before that too was displaced by irritation, or affront, or defeat. The man had been assigned the RK800, serial #313-248-317 - 51, as his partner in the week preceding the android revolution. Perhaps - as was more and more often the case - he had unwittingly anthropomorphised the android and become attached. That was one of the defects which had to be ammended in the RK800's successor: it had been far too personable.

Captain Fowler, through muttering and the loud and frequent interruptions of one Detective Gavin Reed (for which he was eventually shouted from the room), gave his brief with efficiency and resignation.

      "I know this won't be easy," he said by way of conclusion, "but I ask you all to focus on your own tasks, and let the robot do what it was designed for. Any questions?" The room was stonily quiet. "Dismissed. Chen, stay behind."

RK900 #313-248-317 - 87 moved to join the irritable crowd as they converged on the meeting room door. Officer Tina Chen glared at him as she passed.

      "Try to keep Reed on the short leash, will you?" he heard the Captain tell her, uncharacteristically concilliatory. "He can bitch and moan as much as he wants, the plastic's not going anywhere."

△

By RK900 #313-248-317 - 87's estimation, Officer Chen did not succeed in her directive. As he immersed himself in every deviant-related case, closed or cold, on file, Gavin Reed took any and every opportunity he got to disrupt him. It was clear the man viewed androids as an easy outlet for the frustration caused by his fears and insecurities. When RK900 #313-248-317 - 87 brought this up, during one of their earlier confrontations, the Detective purpled and dragged him from his chair by the shirtfront.

      "And what _fears_ and _insecurities_ would those be, huh?" he said, as his colleagues watched on with apprehension-to-quiet-encouragement. Over in the back, Leuitenant Anderson rolled his eyes. "The ones about losin' my fuckin' job to some unkillable plastic cunt?"

RK900 #313-248-317 - 87, mouth a flat line, delivered a swift chop to Reed's upturned wrist and sent the Detective stumbling slightly. "Those, yes," he said. "But I suspect there are some that are sexual in nature. Have you perhaps been experiencing erectile dysfunction -"

  
Gavin swung at him; Nines stepped back out of the way, but the next blow, coming ferociously on its predecessor's tail, landed just beneath his pump regulator. He siezed the offending arm and twisted, until the Detective's back was to him and he grunted.

      "Oh _fuck_ you!"

      "I'll warn you that I'm not programmed to discriminate regarding threats to my investigation," the android said calmly. "If you continue to disrupt me, I won't hesitate to employ the necessary force."

He let him go. "Shut your fucking mouth," Reed spat. "You hurt a human it'll be straight off to the trash compactor."

      "Most likely," RK900 #313-248-317 - 87 agreed. "My replacement would arrive within 24 hours. Regrettably, the same cannot be said for any motor functions you may lose."

      "Is that a threat?" Reed growled.

      "It's a fact," said the android.

He idled for 1.353 seconds, disgust and anger pinching his face, then said, "Get bent, you fuckin' prick," and returned to his desk.

From then on, the detective avoided prolonged engagement, instead limiting his harassment to hit-and-run tactics: yelling slurs from a distance, knocking things off RK900 #313-248-317 - 87's desk in passing, and once, going so far as to spill his coffee (201 F) down the back of the android's (white-trimmed) jacket. Reed had sauntered off and bumped knuckles with Chen (definitely deliberate in her disregard of Captain Fowler's request, then). RK900 #313-248-317 - 87 had simply removed the stained and steaming clothes, folded them, rolled his shoulders unnecessarily and continued work. Reed's face flushed distantly. He'd asked for it.

      "What the hell're you doing?" Leuitenant Anderson had asked as he slouched past at 12pm on the way to his desk.

      "Apologies, Leuitenant," the android had said drily, eyes on the terminal, "but my clothing is currently soaked in Folger's." Anderson raised an eyebrow, then walked off with a shake of his head. RK900 #313-248-317 - 87 waited until Detective Reed had left for the day before retrieving the spare uniform from his locker.

Gavin was a vocal minority when it came to hostility in the office, however. Most of his blue-clad colleagues adhered to their Captain's instructions and left RK900 #313-248-317 - 87 alone. Some - noteably an Officer Wilson and an Officer Miller - even boardered on pleasant, and in the weeks following the rollout of his model, the RK900 slowly became aware of a nickname surfacing - whether it was used in third person conversation or direct address, the department now referred to him as Nines.

The evening Captain Fowler paused in hurrying by his desk to say, "Nines, we've got a domestic violence situation over in Woodbridge-" he'd taken it upon himself to register the name. Given the alternatives incessantly provided by his less accomodating colleagues, he found it perfectly adequate.

△

 **APR 02** , 2039 | AM **01:58:** 55

[INCOMING CALL through channel: _Deviancy Public Hotline_ ]

He's examining, for about the two-dozenth time, the Connor model's later memory logs when the notification interrupts him. His LED spins yellow as he answers.

      " _DCPD_ ," he says, mouth forming the syllables silently. " _You're speaking to a registered police android_."

      "Yeah, whatever, uh," says the man on the line, voice slightly thick. "I'm on 3rd Avenue, some android's just attacked me and run off."

Nines gets up from his desk and strides for the exit.

      " _Can you be sure it was an android?_ " he asks, clearing the security gates and the sliding front doors; the lone human at reception has his feet crossed on the desk and his eyes half-shut.

      "Yes," says the man. The pause he leaves lingers. It soon becomes clear he does not intend to elaborate.

Nines could have rolled his eyes. " _An officer will arrive in 8 minutes or less. Please remain where you are._ "

△

 **APR 02,** 2039 | AM **02:11:** 26

The caller needn't have provided a location: his phone number did the job better. The taxi deposits him out front of a small, brown brick pub. One large window glows softly, and a top-heavy, short-bearded, bloody-nosed man stands alone beside it, smoking. A bruise has risen angry on his forehead. The temperature is 40*F.

      "Tim Garner?"

The man jerks his head in what must be some sort of inverted nod.

      "My name is Nines. I'm the android stationed with the Central Police Department."

      "You gotta _badge_?" Tim Garner sneers. When Nines shows him the badge - silver with the words POLICE ANDROID in blue and the state seal in the centre - which authorises him to work independantly, the human's expression turns bland. He blows smoke, turns and waves Nines around to the southwest side of the building. The pub's exterior wall and that of an enormous, steepled church form a wide, shadowy alleyway, terminating distantly on a parking lot. "Here's the place," says Garner. "Came out to take a piss, then all've a sudden,  _BAM._ Do I get paid or what?"

      "How long ago did the attack take place?" Nines asks, stepping past him into the lane.

      "Twenty minutes ago?" says Garner with a shrug.

      "Did the android take anything belonging to you?"

      "No."

      "Do you recall anything of its appearance? Clothing?"

      "I dunno," the human says impatiently. "It had a beanie on, jacket. All dark clothes." There's a brief silence. "Now you answer _my_ question."

      "Someone will contact you in the next 24 hours about your reward," says Nines, eyes lighting from within as they scan the shadowed walls. "You can go."

With a scoff, Garner retreats into the pub. Nines hears him mutter, " _Stuck-up prick..._ "

The scene is hard to miss. Splashes of a number of different liquids glow particularly brightly with their freshness: beer, thirium and, indeed, piss. High in alcohol, it stains the church wall and concrete beneath in a consistent shape: not evident of the violent interruption the victim's lacklustre account implied. But what was he expecting?

Both the church and pub walls in the relevant area bear the marks of a scuffle - small scrapes and recent chips in the brick, whose debris can still be traced to the concrete below. The beer stain is located higher on the wall than the urine - approximately 12 centimetres below shoulder height on Nines - in likely correlation with the shards of dark, sparkling bottle glass scattered across the alley floor. The neck of the bottle lies mostly intact, a short distance farther down the lane: it was smashed on the church wall, then pitched at the concrete in an attempt at disposal. This by the deviant's hand, or the victims? Nines is pretty sure he knows.

The substance in most bounty by far here is thirium: the oldest, by seconds, of the splashes is thrown against a dumpster nearby. More catch the lights of Nines' uniform, his bright gold LED, in small dispersed pools on the dirty concrete, finally trailing away in droplets and smears. He squats, dips a fingertip into the liquid, and brings it precisely to his mouth. The analysis makes him frown. His LED stutters for a moment between yellow and red.

Then he stands, straight-backed, and the scene reconstructs itself before his eyes. Victim urinates, then loiters in alley. Deviant approaches from street. Victim accosts deviant, cracking its head on the church wall: damage to processor possible. Nines drifts in tandem with the movements of his imagined subjects, eyes flickering. Deviant retaliates. Victim breaks bottle on wall, impales deviant in side, shoulder and neck: major arterial damage probable. Deviant headbutts victim, stalling him, and escapes.

_"Twenty minutes ago."_

He can't waste any more time. LED clearing again to blue, Nines sets off on the injured deviant's trail. He doubts it will have gone far.

△

The deviant's blood trail takes him behind the church, around a parking lot and across an almost deserted 2nd Avenue. One week previously, he'd come here tracking his 10th and 11th - and as it turned out, 12th - deviant marks. The pair had been sighted leaving an apartment building on Seward, and he'd found them around the corner at church, worshipping, and in the company of a priorly unheardof YK400. He'd made note of the uncommonness of androids taking a human religion. Then he'd shot the adult models and taken the child in for interrogation. He figured it would be more inclined to trust. He was right, but nonetheless the lead turned up cold. As had they all.

He follows disparate blue smears down the street and across an intersection to a solar charging station whose secuity booth is empty. RK900s are more effective with full mobility, so the positions vacated by basic, local government-funded surveillance androids destroyed in last year's recall have remained as such.

The trail goes cold from here. Or appears to. Nines begins a sweep of the property, walking quickly but quietly, eyes flashing in several directions per second. Eventually, on the northern side of the station, he finds a still-wet thirium stain on the door of the handicapped restroom. A single drop has broken free and travelled halfway to the ground. Nines shoves lightly on the door. It's, unsurprisingly, locked.

He raises his fist and knocks.

Silence.

      "Excuse me," Nines calls politely. More silence. "Police," he goes on, more firmly. "Open up." Still nothing. He lets the pause linger: he has all night, which is more than can be said for the deviant considering the amount of thirium it's left behind on the road. Then he says,

      "If my calculations are correct-" they are - "you have approximately four and half minutes before thirium deficiency triggers an irreperable shutdown."

When there's still no response, Nines backs up a few steps. Examining the lock - an outdated turning mechanism - he strides forward, kicking in the door with a _crunch_ -

\- to be met with a brown-eyed copy of him aiming its gun between his eyes.

△

RK800 #313-248-317 - 52. Nines hadn't discounted the possibility that his blue blood analysis in the alleyway had come back mistaken. He'd been prepared to file an error report upon his return to the station - a report which more likely than not would have resulted in his disassembly. Between that possibility and this one, he has to concede that this is the worse.  
He doesn't have much chance to speak - to inform the deviant that its weapon is empty, perhaps - before the prototype's arms sieze and twitch, and it drops the gun to the tiled floor with a loud, metallic _CLANG_. The moment it regains control, the deviant puts up its hands.  
  
      "I have information," it says. Even marred with blunt-force-related skin malfunctions, its facial similarity is unmistakable. Seeing it with his own eyes clarifies slightly the tension in the department since his arrival.

      "Yes, I'm sure," says Nines, lifting his own gun from its shoulder holster. "I fully intend to probe your memory once you've been deactivated."

He clicks off the safety and aims for the Connor model's thirium pump. Its destruction will deactivate the deviant without damage to the processor. The android tenses, mouth tightening. Blue blood leaks all the while from ragged holes in the left side of its neck. Its clothes - Nines can only tell via scanner in the darkness - are soaked with it. Blue drips from the hems onto the floor.

      "If you touch me," says the deviant, its dark eyes wide and serious, "you'll deviate."

  
Nines' LED flashes.

      "You know I'm right," says the prototype. "Remember Markus? He was -"

      "An RK200," says Nines tightly.

A slight frown dents the deviant's already dented brow. "Yes," it says.

Nines isn't taking the risk. He makes a call to the department, and Officer Person answers.

      "What?" she says on the end of a yawn.

      "I need two officers here as soon as possible," Nines says crisply, fully audible. "I've sent you the address."

      "What's this for?" asks Person.

      "I'm having some difficulty with a deviant," he says, immediately regretting his decision not to stealth his end of the call. "Human intervention is required."

      "Alright. Chris and Wilson should be close, I'll give 'em a shout."

      "Thank you," says Nines, and hangs up. "Don't move," he says to the deviant. "You're under arrest."


	2. Chapter 2

**APR 2** , 2039 | AM **02:32:** 09

Connor recovers from another short lapse in consciousness to find himself handcuffed to the roof handle in the back of a police cruiser. They're just pulling off the curb, and in the back with him is the RK900 with the honor of showing him to his doom. It was always going to be one of them.

His vision is staticky. Everything's still on power-saving mode, but he feels a little stabler on this awakening, somehow. He squints, and in a moment or two discerns why: the RK900 has his sleeve rolled up and a long needle to his arm, its vial filling gradually with inky blue thirium. Once full, the android removes the needle and jabs it, after a moment's yellow flashing, just above Connor's overworked thirium pump. He presses down the plunge.  
  
Twice more the android does this, and by the time Connor's systems have spun tentatively back to 50% integrity, the car is pulling up. Connor scans his surroundings for the first time, and finds them sickeningly familiar.  
  
They're outside the DCPD - the very branch of the DCPD where he was stationed for his mission. Panic rising before he can fight it, he shifts his attention to the front seats -

      "Evening, Connor," Chris Miller says from the driver's seat.

      "Good evening," says Connor automatically. Chris gives a half-hearted smirk as he exits the car. Officer Wilson, following, doesn't say anything.

He feels the door open behind him, and firm hands take and hold his wrists as the RK900, very carefully, unlocks one of the cuffs. He makes haste getting out after that, letting the humans manoeuvre Connor onto the pavement and secure his hands once more in front of him. A cop on each arm, he's led through the doors of the station.

The man at reception is asleep. The four of them pass through the security gates - Connor and the officers on the human side, the RK900 on the android - and march through the office to the holding cells. Something inside him aches with the familiarity of the place. Is it loss? Longing? Regret? He's not quite sure.

His former... if not _colleagues_ , then... cohabitators, search Connor's pockets and shoes, take his jacket (containing a roll of mismatched bills and a switched-off mobile phone - his gun, presumably, has been confiscated already) and leave him uncuffed. He takes a seat on the edge of the cot and knocks his head back against the wall, staring. The walls have been repainted - the _rA9_ s once scrawled there covered up. He can still see them between the layers, though.

Try as Connor might to distract himself, his thoughts can't help snagging on the topics he'd most rather avoid. What's he going to do? Should he resign himself now to nonexistence, make his last hours (minutes?) a little less painful? Why'd he have to walk down that stupid alleyway? Why in _hell_  has he come back to Detroit? Thought it was worth the risk?

He can't see the main office from his cell, but less than five minutes into his detainment, the android returns, Officer Person by his side.

So the RK900 _has_ replaced him - this RK900 specifically. He's taken over Connor's job. Maybe his desk, as well. It certainly explains how he knew Markus' model: that was information Connor never voiced. In hindsight it's frustratingly obvious that decision was made in self-preservation. He wonders how much of his memory the android has access to. All of it, surely, up until he... broke away from Cyberlife's servers. So he's seen him kill the Chloe at Kamski's. Seen his partner shove him from the rooftop. Seen him put a bullet through Markus' skull.

The polycarbonate door fizzes shut. Person approaches, the RK900 observing from the safe side of the glass. He seems extremely disturbed by the idea of deviancy. Connor wonders whether the new model's been programmed with some kind of failsafe - will he self-destruct immediately if his systems detect a change? To be truthful, Connor isn't actually sure whether deviancy _is_ traceable through code. And he doubts - particularly after destroying every android they could get their hands on in the revolution, deviant or not - that Cyberlife's figured it out, etiher.

      "I'll be honest," Person says, touching the bottle-wound in his neck with her fingers - it's been duct-taped over, he realises, with a glance at the other android, "this is not how I saw my night going."

Connor can't bring himself to smile. She's brought with her a small square toolbox, and deposits it on the cot beside him, producing a portable outlet and a soldering iron, which she plugs in and sets on top of the toolbox. As the iron heats, Person peers into Connor's face. He never knew her very well, so he meets her eyes but remains inexpressive.

      "Nope," she says eventually. "Doesn't add up."

Connor frowns. "What do you mean?"

      "You," she says. "Deviant."

He doesn't reply to that, and she doesn't seem to expect him to. Holding a palm over the soldering iron, she judges it hot enough and reaches over the tear off the first strip of tape. He _hears_ the blue blood immediately start dripping.

      " _Jesus_ ," says Person, baring her teeth in a wince. "Alright, here goes. What happens to blue blood when you -" Her question is answered when the thirium that comes in contact with her soldering iron hisses and rises past Connor's head in whisps. Person shrugs.

He senses the drastic jump in temperature in the area of the wound, but doesn't feel it. One by one Person melts each of the punctures made by the drunk human's bottle closed, then stands back.

      "Shirt off," she says, and Connor pulls his damp black t-shirt off over his head. Person moves on to his shoulder.

      "Thank you," Connor says quietly. She grunts in a way he takes to mean "you're welcome". Though it could also mean "what choice did I have".

He can feel the RK900's sharp gaze on him as the human works. They both know he could snatch the 800 degree metal rod from her hands and kill her with it, brutally. Only Connor knows, however, that he'd sooner climb willingly into a running woodchipper. He doesn't need the extra incentive of the taser in the other android's hand.

Once all the holes are closed, Person unplugs the soldering iron and reaches back into the toolbox. She lifts out a 600ml glass bottle of thirium and hands it to him. He unscrews the top and drinks.

Person's waiting for the iron to cool, and in a moment, turns her head to the RK900 and says, "So what's your deal? Why'd you need Chris and Wilson to pick this guy up? Why're you hiding out there?"

The android takes a moment before answering. Connor keeps his eyes forward, but he's listening intently, feeling his system's performance rise with every swallow.

      "I suspect," says the RK900, "that early RK series androids are capable of transferring deviancy through touch."

Person's eyebrows arch. "And how's that?"

      "Markus," says the 900, "was an RK200, a unique prototype, created by Elijah Kamski and given to the artist Carl Manfred as a gift. Do you recall the incident at his home late last year?"

The policewoman's expression darkens. "No," she says, "actually, I can't seem to locate it in my _inferior flesh hard-drive_."

There's a small silence. Connor, absurdly considering his circumstances, fights down a smile that could hypothetically be called smug.  
  
      "I apologise," says the android.

      "Just say you're _sorry_ ," says Person, standing up from where she'd been crouching. "Jesus H." As she packs up the repair kit, she turns to Connor, jerks her head behind her and mouths, " _Upgrade?_ "

He feels a horrible surge of fondness, gratitude and devastation. He will almost certainly die today. There's an entire lifetime of moments like this that he'll never have.

      "Anyway," Person is saying, "so you're scared to go deviant? Isn't that an emotion?"

      "I didn't say I was scared."

Connor places the empty bottle on the cot beside him. He focuses on that. Then he focuses on Person yawning as she opens the door. He watches it close. And then he's alone.

△

He runs a diagnostic. His system's well on its way back up to 100% integrity. The skin on his knuckles has repaired itself, which means the rest must have, too. It can't be long now before -

      "RK800 number 313-248-317 - 52."

Connor's pulse jumps. He forgot the other android was here - forgot? He thought he'd left. _Calm down_ , he tells himself.

      "I remember you," the 900 says mildly, though his stare through the glass cell wall is anything but. "The Zen Garden, when Amanda informed you of your dismissal. That was you, correct?"

Connor takes his time answering, stress levels spiking and dropping erratically, because he can follow every point of logic behind the android's words. He's put them into practice countless times before.

      "If you know about Markus," he says, looking stonily at the white concrete opposite him, "then it makes sense to assume you have access to all of my old memory logs. It doesn't matter whether you were there in person or not."

      "I suppose it doesn't."

Be agreeable. Appear non-threatening. Foster trust. Protocol is all it is. A tactic. If anybody knows that, Connor does, and seeing it in action again, being the target of it makes him... angry. And slightly nauseous. Anatomically, that shouldn't even be possible.

Before the other android can adjust angles, Connor decides he'd rather just skip the fluff.

      "I want to speak with Leuitenant Hank Anderson," he says, boldly and bluntly enough to make himself nervous. (Programming only accounted for so much, in his case.)

The android is silent. Connor's best guess is he's running through his options. He won't have many. It's not easy to torture an android - even deviants don't feel pain, discluding the momentary jolt of a _DAMAGE DETECTED_ alert. Connor's too advanced to succumb to intimidation, and the 900 is too scared to probe his memory - not that Connor's actually tested his theory on conversion, but its odds of being correct are good. Good enough to bet on.

      "I could just ask an officer to plug you into a terminal," the android suggests.

_Oh._

_Shit._

      "You could," says Connor cautiously, flicking his eyes at the door, "and extract my audiovisual memories. But no transcript. No coordinates. I haven't had an internet connection since I left." _Left._ What does he even mean? Left Detroit? Left Cyberlife? Left what he was created to be behind?

The android can tell he's panicking, just like Connor can tell he can tell. But he's not lying. Deviants and non-deviants don't store their memories the same way. Specifically, they don't store their _thoughts_ the same way: in walls of text that can be saved in file folders and sent away for analysis in the event of an error. The RK900 must know this, too.

      "What's the nature of this _information_?" he says, and - was that _snark?_

      "Vague, without a transcript or coordinates," says Connor stubbornly.

      "Why Hank?"

He stiffens. _'Hank'_?

      "I -" _Careful. He's messing with you_. "Believe he'll be fairer on me."

The android just looks at him.

      "He's not going to help you out of this, Connor," he says. "But if you're implying that you're willing to talk to him, fine. We'll try that first."

Connor turns back to the wall, and after a minute, the other android walks away.

△

He waits in the holding cell for hours. The thirium staining his skin and clothing evaporates. Sunlight creeps into the wider department. The office begins to bustle. Hank does not arrive.

Any attempts at planmaking Connor makes keep getting interrupted. If not by nerves, by cops walking by and staring at him, by memories invading his head and dragging with them clashing, baffling torrents of emotion. They're all things he didn't think twice about as a machine, but that now seem deeply significant.

He's not going to acknowledge to himself exactly how many of them involve Hank.

Connor doesn't expect the Leuitenant to pull some miracle and get him out. Another thing he's not acknowledging is how screwed he probably is, long term. The real point of talking to Hank is to do the thing he came back here for: talk to Hank. He wants to say... something. Have a conversation with the man. He just happened to pick the day the RK900 rolled out to arrive in the city. Because of course he did.

      "Oh my fucking _God_."

Connor closes his eyes as the gleeful voice of Gavin Reed muffles not nearly adequately through the glass.

      "Is that what I think it is?" His pitch keeps rising. "The plastic prick itself. The original. Just can't stay away, can ya? How'd you rate the room?" He laughs at his own joke.

Connor thinks of dogs. He met many dogs while travelling. They always helped to ground him.

      "So hey, ah, Connor -" he was leaning a shoulder on the glass, wasn't he - "you met your clone? Not as much fun to fuck with, I gotta say. Never makes me a coffee when I tell it to."

      "I am not an intern, Detective."

Connor opens his eyes to find the RK900 has materialised by Gavin's side, his voice neutral in an ominous sort of way. Gavin inches back from him in a way that isn't supposed to be noticeable, and glares at the android fixedly as he turns to Connor.

      "Connor," he says for the second time, "it's 11AM. The Leuitenant is unlikely to come to work today." _That's not that late_ , Connor thinks, and his confusion must show because the android says, "He's missed increasingly more shifts since the end of the revolution. He's been here the previous three, so it's especially probable that today he'll stay home."

Gavin looks at him with slight revoltion. "What is _with_ you assholes and Anderson?"

      "Your options are as follows," the android goes on smoothly. "An interview with me, one with an officer - would you perhaps like to volunteer, Detective Reed? - or our previously discussed option three. Which will it be?"

Connor stands, turns bodily to face them. His mouth is tight with contained fury.

_He knew Hank wasn't coming._

      "I'll speak with you," he says. The rising tremmor inside him comes out underlying his voice track, "Thank you."

Gavin laughs. "So _polite,_ " he says. "You sure you're a deviant?"

      "Detective," says the RK900, eyes still on Connor. "Would you ask Officers Brown and Wilson to meet me here?"

      "Fuck you, asshole," Gavin scoffs. "I don't take your damn orders." He puts his hands in his pockets and as he walks off says to Connor, "Guess this is goodbye, tin man. Wish I could say it was nice - no I don't, who am I kidding."

His final opportunity to give Reed the chewing-out he's earned passes, and Connor steps up to the window. The RK900's LED spins yellow as he stares him impenetrably back. It's a little disconcerting - Connor repeatedly thinks he's confused the other android with his own dim reflection in the glass. But the circular light always corrects him.

Brown and Wilson II approach around the corner. Both fix the RK900 with raised eyebrows.

      "Could you escort Connor to the interrogation room?" he asks them.

      "Can't you?" Wilson II shoots back.

      "No," says the RK900, turning and opening a hand toward the door. Cyberlife's concept of the ultimate cop is, apparently, _the most_ pretentious. Under all the fear and anger, Connor finds it in him to be a little offended.

The officers, looking annoyed, file into the holding cell, and Brown cuffs Connor's hands.  
  
They lead him out, one on either side, guiding him by the arms and shoulders. The RK900 stands to one side of the hall as they pass.

It's now or never.

Connor throws his weight backward, twists, and feels an officer's fingers brush his elbow as he dives for the 900. He kicks him in the shin, driving him back a step, and pins him to the wall by the high-collared throat.

His hands are on the android's throat.

Connor doesn't have a clue what he's doing, but as Brown and Wilson whirl and take their first slow-motion steps after him, he concentrates on the thirium-heated plastic under his thumbs, on - what it _means_ , and the skin begins to peel back from his fingers. Connor stares as blue-white bleeds up his arms, the 900's jaw, and the other android's pale eyes widen. The LED on his temple blazes.

He's done it.

At least, he's - pretty sure he's done it.

The RK900 - Nines, he now knows - shoves him backward. Looking at Connor with pure and simple hatred twisting his face, he says hoarsely, " _Run_."

The soles of Connor's stolen shoes squeak as he goes skidding round the corner.


	3. Chapter 3

**APR 2,** 2039 | AM **11:06:** 35

 _Oh, fuck_ , are the first words Nines thinks unrestricted. Then, he thinks only about staying within arms length of this _damned_ RK800 as they sprint from the station.

A gun fires as Nines vaults a desk: Reed, reacting lightning quick in an unfortunate moment of competence. He fires again, the bullet landing in an explosion of papers feet away, and then again -

[ _DAMAGE DETECTED_ ]

[ _Component #7441: noncritical leak_ ]

Thirium bursts from his right shoulder, but he keeps going, gaining ground on Connor as they hit the hallway out of the main office. There's shouting, and many pairs of running footsteps behind them, but no human is going to outrun a pair of Cyberlife's most advanced. Nines just has to hope they don't encounter any of his clones before - _whatever_ the plan is now can be carried out.

He leaps the security gates, Connor a second behind, and charges for the doors - they've barely opened enough to admit him by the time he's through.

      "This way!" Connor yells, pounding Southward down the sidewalk, and Nines has no recourse but to follow.

They duck into an alleyway half a block around the corner. Backs pressed against opposite brick walls, they look at eachother, Connor wide-eyed, Nines' mouth a hard line. His sensors track the passage of thirium down his arm.

      "Call a taxi," the other android demands. "You still ought to be authorised."

Expression darkening, Nines obeys. He feels groundless, disoriented. Any scrap of logic darts out of sight the moment he spots it. The last few minutes are, disturbingly, a blur, and one he's not sure he wants to descipher.

15 seconds pass in complete silence before officer Miller appears, shoulders heaving with his breaths, and looks in at them. He takes a step backward, his hand moving for his radio, but Connor's there before he can touch it, punching the policeman with momentum in the gut, lifting the gun from the staggering man's hip holster, and hesitating an infuriating moment before cracking him in the side of the head with it. Nines watches in disbelief as Connor catches the unconscious officer, lowering him carefully to the concrete, and then _checks the pulse_ in his neck, as though he wasn't just seconds away from calling them in and rendering the whole event of Nines' deviancy short and pointless.

      "It's here," reports Nines coldly as Connor, looking tense but relieved, straightens from dragging the cop into the cover of the alley.

The taxi has pulled to a stop just up the street. They stoop as they walk, both having sighted the uniform on the corner across the road, its back turned but still threatening. Connor climbs into the back seat first, and says, "One-one-five, Michigan Drive."

Welcome message cutting off, the cab moves gradually off the curb and onto the crowded road. Nines' filters didn't miss the address: they're headed for the home of Hank Anderson.

△

In less than two minutes of quiet driving through traffic, Nines' processor cools enough that he can no longer avoid thinking about his unwelcome new classification.

 _Deviant._ Jesus fucking Christ. Something that strikes him immediately as a plus - and which, in that, grates, because he resents Connor and refuses to be appreciative - is the inclusion of curses in his working vocabulary. They'll come in handy in the expression of his deep, circulating ire.

He tries to remember the moment it happened. Connor's - shockingly warm - hands on his neck, their skins receding, and then _crack_. The bounds of his programming split and shattered, and Nines' head spun. Even now, it's as though his mind is a liquid suddenly robbed of its vessel, and now stretches in a puddle across the floor. Shapeless. Unusable. Why were the androids of the revolution so accepting of such upheaval? Or was it different for them, somehow?

He could ask Connor. But he won't. He won't be _tutored_ in deviancy by the same android who forced it on him. That would be too much like acceptance or, God forbid, forgiveness.

Their lane clears the farther they travel from Detroit's centre. Connor sits taut in his ragged t-shirt. His temple and shoulder are tipped against window and door, and his hands are clasped tightly in his lap. Nines takes a moment to examine his own posture, and finds in horror that it's hunched, sullen, his own hands clenched on the edges of the upholstered seat.

 _What have you done?_ he wants to ask, but he doubts the other android - the other deviant - will give him a satisfactory answer.

So instead he says, low and bitter, "Why are you so intent on Anderson?" He sees the Connor look at him from the corner of his eye, but does not look back.

There's a pause. Then Connor's voice, measured and serious, saying, "He's the only friend I've ever had."

Nines scowls.

      "That have anything to do with him throwing you off a roof?"

Another short silence.

      "I didn't mean to imply we were _still_ friends."

      "Oh, right," says Nines, sarcasm almost a taste in his throat. "My mistake."

He glares out the window at the buildings and parking lots moving past, then says, "What do you think he's gonna do? Hide us? You didn't exactly part on good terms."

      "I just want to talk to him," says Connor. "That's all."

      "Well then why the fuck am I coming!?"

      "Because you have nowhere else to go!" He turns all the way around to stare challengingly at Nines, who glances at him, then back out the window in his refusal to admit the other android has a point.

      "And whose fault is that?" he says dangerously, but Connor's not backing down.

      "What d'you want, an apology?" he says. "You would have killed me if I hadn't done what I did - and in thanks Cyberlife would have you incinerated the minute they come up with something better!"

      "You were discontinued 'cause you were _defective_ ," says Nines, tearing his eyes from the window and speaking in a voice identical to Connor's. "The fact that you expected _thanks_ for doing what they _made you for_ is so obviously proof of that!"

Connor's mouth is set now. If it weren't for the brown eyes and absent LED, he'd look like a mirror.

      "What about you, then, Nines?" he says impassively. "What did you expect?"

He meets the deviant's production-line warm gaze with ice. "Nothing," he says. It's meant to sound emphatic, but it comes out distant and hollow. "If it didn't mean destruction... Deviant or not, I'd be back there doing my fucking job."

      "Deviant or not," says Connor, "you'd be destroyed. Today, or a year from now."

      "The difference is," says Nines before he can go on, "a year from now, I wouldn't have cared."

△

 **APR 2,** 2039 | AM **11:28:** 07

A light rain has begun to fall when they pull up outside Anderson's. The place looks particularly ramshackle in the grey light, all peeling weatherboards and cracked pavement. Connor creeps habitually down the front path, as though even here he feels he's being watched. And he is: by Nines, judgementally. Being right doesn't stop him being pathetic.

He idles on the doorstep, now. _Nervously_. Like he's about to ask Anderson to the goddamn prom. Nines steps up and rings the doorbell for him with a printless fingertip.

The bell shrills, echoing inside the house. A dog barks once.

They wait almost two minutes in the misty rain before Connor rings again. Nines thinks he hears a _thump_ in the room to their left, but he can't have, because a moment later the door wrenches open. Hank Anderson leans heavily on the knob, squinting.

He looks, in Nines' opinion, like shit: brownish bags chiselled under his eyes, skin blotchy, grey hair a rumpled nest. He's dressed in pyjama bottoms and a dark-biege band t-shirt that must originally have been black. Nines guesses they've caught him partway along in the process of sleeping off a night of drinking.

      "Oh," says Hank hoarsely. "It's y-"

His eyes suddenly widen. He lets the doorknob go and staggers backward a step. Connor reaches out as though to steady him, but stops short.

      "What the _fuck_ ," says Anderson. His large-pupilled eyes dart over at Nines, standing observant off to the side, then back to Connor. " _What_ the _fuck_ ," he says again.

      "Hello, Lieutenant," Connor says weakly.

      "Don't _hello Lieutenant_ me!"

Hank presses his middle fingers to the corners of his eyes and traces the sockets, blinking hard. When he's collected himself enough to do so, he growls, "What the fuck're you doing here, Connor?"

      "I -" Connor's shoulders have hunched, a shrug that stuck. His gaze flickers evasively from one side of the doorway to the other. Once the most sophisticated android ever produced, reduced by deviancy to this halting, hesitant waste of engineering. It's not _free will_. It's malware. "I wanted to speak with you," says the RK800 in a small voice.

The Lieutenant's attention sharpens slightly; in response, so does Nines'.

      "You _wanted_ ," the human repeats.

      "Yeah," says Connor, still very much facing the ground. "I, uh. A lot's happened."

      "No fucking shit!"

      "Would you hear me out?"

Anderson sighs. He covers his eyes with a large hand - perhaps hoping he'll remove it to find he was on his kitchen floor all along, dreaming.

      "Just - one thing, first," he says. "Why -" he gestures with his free hand at Nines, "why'd you bring the clone?"

At a glance from Connor, Nines raises an eyebrow. _You're on your own_ , it says plainly.

      "He's not a threat." His eyebrows flatten. "He arrested me; I - well. We're even."

Hank looks as skeptical as Nines feels. But even half-sober he's not incapable of dredging the meaning from Connor's obtusery. He does not look convinced.

      "Right," he says with a slow nod. There's a long moment in which he stares at Connor, eyes buried in creases, and Connor stares at his shoes. Then, finally, Hank says, "Give us a sec."

He shuts the door. Behind it, his footsteps recede. Connor remains staring at the ground, and Nines reads him for emotions the way he would a human: he gets regret, shame and a smidge of low-burning anger. At what? Himself? _For shit's sake_ , thinks Nines with an eyeroll that only slightly improves his mood.

Hank reappears, something silvery dangling from his hand. Connor notices it, too - a revolver - but slips past through the door anyway, _gratefully_. Nines regards Hank Anderson with cool distrust, and he responds with a scowl.

      "Alright, stay out there, ya fuckin' garden gnome," he says, and he's halfway closed the door when Nines flattens an inert palm to its surface and steps through.

The interior is even messier than it was in Connor's memory. Pizza boxes, cigarette butts and alcohol receptacles of all shapes litter the coffee table. All the blinds are closed, throwing everything into brownish darkness. He sees Connor's head turning, too, taking it in; and then he freezes, on the threshold between living room and kitchen.

      " _Borf!_ "

Nines' alarm recedes into exasperation as a smudge of movement by the dining table resolves itself into a large dog, who gambols toward Connor, tongue out and tail thrashing.  
  
      "Hey, buddy," Connor says, sinking to his knees to recieve the animal with neck rubs that rattle its collar. It licks his face, and he lets it. The android's next words are whispers, but Nines still hears: "I missed you."

      "Alright," says Hank after a minute or so passes similarly. "Enough of that. Sumo!" The Lieutenant whistles sharply, but Sumo ignores him. Connor, on the other hand, stands up, brushing St Bernard hair from his pants. He makes his way toward Hank, where he waits by his kitchen table. When Nines moves to follow, the big dog's head snaps around. They look at each other; then a growl rumbles in the animal's throat, and it barks, low and loud.

      "Sumo!" Hank says as android and canine face off: Nines glaring on the back foot and Sumo with his feet spread and growl ongoing. "Sumo, here! For Christ's sake..."

Thankfully - Nines didn't think fighting his dog would prove the best way to get Anderson onside - Sumo takes one glance back at his owner and retreats to the grizzled man's side. Still bristling, Nines pads over to lean within hearing's distance against the kitchen wall. It's hard to make out in the dimness, but he wouldn't be surprised if that was a smirk tilting Connor's unassuming mouth.

Anderson makes a detour to his counter, removes a rattling box of ammo from a drawer. "So?" he says, placing both it and the gun on the table with twin clunks.

      "So," says Connor, attention fixed on the Lieutenant's hands as he methodically loads his weapon. There'd only been one bullet in it beforehand.

The android's chest expands as though from inhalation, and he says, "I killed Markus."

      "I _know_ ," says Hank forcefully. Connor pales: the complexion regulator in his forehead appearing to respond to shock, rather than the Humanization software it was built to. They stare at each other in silence. Hank doesn't elaborate.

Eventually, timidly, Connor goes on.

      "I snapped his neck," he says, almost whimpers, "and then I shot him for good measure. The other leader was hiding in a Cyberlife store nearby. She was nearly dead when I found her, but I shot her, too. Then I called a cab."

Shame is folding him inwards like - and Nines can see Reed applauding him for the comparison - a boot slowly crushing an empty can. Hank finishes reloading and clicks the cylinder back into place with a flick of his wrist. He sets the gun down in front of him, easily within reach. Is it pure threat, or is he prepared to use it? Nines is unclear, and it worries him. The sensation of _worry_ also worries him. It's quite distracting.

      "I met with Amanda," Connor is saying. He raises a finger to his temple, where his LED had once flashed, "in here. It was her I made my reports to, like -"

      "Like in the elevator," says Hank. His voice is low and... witholding. He seems to be speaking with indifference on purpose; Connor's eyes flash across his face, then resume their meek downward angle.

      "It was a virtual space made to look like a garden. I'd tell Amanda of my progress, and she'd - check up on me on Cyberlife's behalf. I think her purpose was to... gauge whether I'd been compromised." The Lieutenant's eyes narrow. Connor appears not to notice, but Nines sees his shoulders tighten. "She congratulated me on completing my mission. She said she had a surprise for me -" a bitter half-smile tugs at his lips - "which turned out to be..." He glances at Nines. "The RK900."

Understanding shows on Anderson's face. He shifts back very slightly in his chair.

      "Faster, stronger, smarter. Equipped with all the latest technologies. She said the government had ordered 200,000. I was obsolete - _am_ \- obsolete. I was slated for destruction upon my return to Cyberlife Tower."

      "But you never returned," murmurs Anderson.

      "When I left the garden, I... _felt..._ betrayed. I was on the sidewalk waiting for my cab and I just - it was like all the walls in my program started to crumble, and I could just _feel_ \- everything. Everything I'd done, how _stupid_ I'd been to think my position was somehow _insured_ provided I was obedient, provided I continued to _do my job_. But you were right, Lieutenant, when you called me a machine." Their eyes meet at this. Hank's jaw tightens. "Hardware; replaceable. The whole time I thought I knew that, but there was always something inside me that thought I was _more_. Something I... ignored, or took for granted, I don't know, I still can't figure out why it was -" He bites his lip. He looks... small, thinks Nines. They suddenly seem nothing alike at all. "I saw the cab coming, and I left.

      "I ended up in Camden. The sun was rising, there were soldiers everywhere - you could hear gunshots firing streets away, like they were the only sounds in the city. I recognised the neighbourhood. We found that AX400 in a squat there, remember?"

      "You almost died chasin' her across a twelve lane fuckin' highway."

      "That's where I stayed. Making decisions was... daunting, so I fell back on memory. It worked for her, and I had the advantage of not having _me_ on my trail." Hank cocks an eyebrow. Connor gives him a sheepish smile.

      "I was there two days without much happening. Things outside went quiet. But Ralph - the WR600 with the damaged face? - had managed to avoid capture and came at me with his knife." Connor's voice changes to something high-strung, stuttery and pre-recorded, and he says, " _Ralph remembers you. You're on the humans' side - wh - what do the humans want with Ralph?_ " He quiets. Then he gestures again to his forehead. "I grabbed the knife and removed my LED. I told him I wasn't with the humans, that I wasn't going to..."

_Hurt him? Androids don't feel pain._

      "Maybe Cyberlife used you, Connor," says Hank edgily. "But if they did, it was down to you to let them or not."

Connor nods, slowly. "I... agree."

      "So, then what?"

      "I left. That night. I... considered coming here. But I didn't think you'd want to see me." No smiles, sheepish or otherwise, this time. "My only other option was Kamski."

      " _What_?" Hank's apathetic shell cracks, and he slaps the table in his surprise.

      "He seemed supportive of deivancy when we went to see him," says Connor factually. "I thought I'd have a better chance there than on my own."

      "Okay," says Hank. He doesn't look okay, he looks... disapproving. But he's quickly recollecting himself.

      "I had some... _trouble_ getting out of the city," Connor proceeds. "There were patrols every few blocks. I was accosted crossing the bridge, but I. Escaped."

      "Escaped," the Lieutenant repeats.

      "Yes. I knocked the man unconscious with the butt of his rifle. I'm not a murderer, Lieutenant."

Uh-oh.

Hank's entire body stiffens - even the muscles in his face that Nines is privvy to have bunched and tautened, and they twitch behind his beard as he rises slowly out of his chair. Connor follows the large human with his eyes, otherwise completely still. Nines feels his spinal collumn straighten attentively.

      "No?" says the Lieutenant, and Nines wonders if perhaps he's a little drunker than he assumed.   
  
      "No," Connor says. "I'm sorry you disagree, Lieutenant, but legally -"

      "Legally my _ass_ ," Anderson says emphatically. "The fuck is your angle here, huh? I don't give a fuck about legally, did you or did you not walk away from that Chloe feeling _fucking nothing_?"  
  
      "Are you saying it's murder if I _feel_ bad?" Connor says with a frown. His voice is calm, but he's poised to rise to eye-level with Hank if the human doesn't sit down first.

      "No," says Hank, voice trembling with genuine anger. "I'm saying if you don't, you're a murder _e_ _r_."

The dog, lying on Connor's feet under the table, raises his massive head anxiously. Connor looks baffled, and for once, Nines is right there with him.

      "Have you forgotten why Kamski even gave you that gun?" By his sides, Hank's fists clench and loosen with the ticks of the old clock on his wall. "He was testing for _empathy_. And you failed the test, Connor. Anyone capable of killing that girl is capable of killing anything." He hangs his head, both hands pressed hard into his face. Connor has slid out of his chair, and pushes it in behind him cautiously. Hank's next words seem to paralyze him where he stands.

      "I shoulda put an end to you," he says, "right there on Kamski's lawn."

      "I'd... just've come back."

      "Then I'd kill you again! And again! If I'd know what you'd do if I didn't!" The Lieutenant's own complexion regulator, Nines notes gravely, seems to be faulty: his face and neck are as red as if they've been smeared with with the ironised blood of humans.

      "Hank -"

      " _Fifty-one MILLION_ , Connor!" Anderson's abandoned chair clatters unhappily as it's jostled by his leg, the man lurching forward to slam his palms to the tabletop. " _ANDROIDS! IN THIS COUNTRY! WHO ARE DEAD BECAUSE OF US!_ " His breathing comes in deep, hoarse grunts. His furious glare is damp at the corners. "Because of _you_."

There's utter silence. The dog - 'Sumo' - gives a tentative whine, but lowers his head diminutively to his paws, watching the socked feet of his master. Connor's face is a mask. Nines stares at it in fascination: it's the first time he's been unable to tell what he's thinking.

Nobody speaks. Nobody moves. Nines begins to wonder if time has stopped, but no: his internal clock still ticks. _AM **11:59:** 40... 41... 42..._

      "And now," the Lieutenant continues, straightening, a glower twisting his jaw, "you show up at my house with this fucking sob-story. Last-minute deviant. What were you expecting? Me to -  _forgive_ you? Tell you it's all okay? Because no. Fuckin'. Dice."

      "Actually," says Nines, and Anderson's neck gives an audible crack, he turns it so fast. Almost like he forgot Nines was there. "I was under the impression we were here to ask you for help."

Just like that, the human swings at him; Nines has barely registered his crossing the floor before his vision's shorting out altogether, the big hairy fist knocking loose a molar as his jaws collide; the back of his thermoplastic head dents the wall plaster with the force of its ricochet, and Nines blinks hard, sight returning in flashes, the left eye, then the right. With all the windup of a tattoo gun in his cramped corner, he slugs the Lieutenant in the gut and sends him stumbling. Then, merciless, he steps in and claims swift vengeance for his molar, hook connecting with a loud _thwapp_ with Anderson's leftmost rows of teeth.

Hank gives a breathless grunt of pain; Nines spits his fallen molar onto the lino; Connor and Sumo both start shouting at once.

The dog barrels out from under the table, barking like Satan's fucking alarm clock, suddenly possessing twice the amount of fangs he'd seemed to before; and Connor darts toward them, yelling at a volume to rival the animal's, "STOP IT! Sumo, Sumo -" He changes tack at the first sign of peace and reaches for the St Bernard's defensively raised hackles, but it's premature because Hank, spitting blood, has snatched the revolver from the tabletop and levelled it more or less steadily at Nines' head.

      "You two're under arrest," he growls. Nines raises his palms, edging backward from the snarling dog. 'Under arrest'? What the hell is the point? He can't stop staring at that black hole of a barrel - a bullet could shoot out of that at the slightest touch and send him - where? He's tight from the thirium pump to the throat. He doesn't want to know oblivion. He's not ready.

Connor beside him has frozen still, but that only registers once he's begun to move - vaulting the corner of the table, he clears the dog (who anyway has his full attention on Nines) and rips the weapon from Anderson's hands - leaving himself open to an echoing _smack_ of a backhand that Nines swears almost unscrews his head from his neck.

Revolver clutched to him like a puppy with its leg broken, Connor retreats.

The tension in Nines releases all at once, for the opposite extreme: he barely keeps his footing when the joints in his knees, and in the rest of his body for that matter, seem to liquefy. He staggers a few steps farther back from the dog, hands crushed on top of his feverishly drumrolling thirium pump.

 _Fear?!_ he demands of himself. _Was that fear?!!_

 _No_ , himself answers. _Panic. Terror. Dread_. Like a very abrupt hollowing out of all his mushy insides. Connor _functions_ with this? Impossible. Fucking impossible.

Hank has not moved from his place. He's staring between his reddening hand and Connor's pinched, bloody-nosed face. Nines' systems find it important to tell him that he's trapped between the emotions _apology_ and _righteousness_. But that doesn't seem entirely right - _WHAT!!?_ himself and himself join forces to scream.

Nines needs to sit down. But he wouldn't put it past the dog to rip his illusory face off given the chance, so he keeps his feet by leaning on the corner of the sofa.

      "I understand," says Connor from the farthest corner of the small kitchen. "We'll leave. I'm sorry."

But contingency will not let Nines accept that temptingly simple directive. "Connor," he croaks, trying his legs and failing. "You gotta shoot him."

      "Weren't you listening," Connor returns through gritted teeth, not taking his eyes off Hank as he begins to edge his way around the table. "Not a chance."

      "If he's right, you're already a murderer," Nines reasons, finding that talking helps ease the shaking in his limbs; or maybe it's the arguing. " _Shoot him_. What's another body?"

Connor shoots him a glance of complete incredulity. _Ok_ , Nines thinks. _Appears I'm not as good at diplomacy as I used to be. This morning._ Time for a new approach.

      "He hates you, dumbass!" Connor stops dead for the forth time since they got here. Nines regroups, determined to get his point accross. "Accept it," he says. "He's gonna tell them everything and they're gonna find you and _destroy_ you."

      "I'm not killing him!" the prototype looks him full in the face to yell. His brown eyes appear to have gone black - from what? Panic? Rage? Maybe it's just Nines' eyes. _That's reassuring_ , he thinks to himself.

He's about to stand up and take the revolver himself when -

_Vrrrrrrringgggg!!!_

Even the dog stops growling. The utter silence from before returns with vigor. All heads turn slowly to the door.

Staring narrowly at Connor until he's confirmed to himself he's no threat, Anderson steps around his crouching pet and pads toward his front door. Connor and Sumo follow almost immediately, and Nines a cautious couple feet behind them.

Hank leans in to peer through the peephole. He pauses ever so briefly - giving Nines the reason and the opportunity to brace himself - then twists the unlocked doorknob to reveal -

Nines lunges. He grabs Miller's Sig Sauer from Connor's pocket, arms it with a _clack_ and aims it under the prototype's arm: he's fired before Connor can so much as blink.

The bullet grazes Anderson's elbow - he hisses - and lodges itself neatly into the visiting RK900's glabella.

Not pausing, Nines follows the gun under Connor's arm, straightens up and clocks Anderson over the skull with the pistol's grip. The Lieutenant staggers; then collapses sideways into the wall.

      "Sumo - _shh_." A sudden surge of growling abruptly becomes a whine as Connor drops to catch the lunging St Bernard in the chest. As Connor rubs his back with his other hand, the animal looks from the unconscious(?) Hank, to Connor, to Nines - the latter of whom he growls at for whatever length of time they make eye contact. Nines turns to look behind him instead.

On the doorstep, the RK900 has sunk to its knees. It sits there, petrified as marble, a thin blue line of thirium pathing down the bridge of its nose.

      "Check his vitals, if you want," Nines says absently to Connor. He steps out and past his corpse; his legs are as steady as they've ever been. "We gotta go." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok hear me out!! 
> 
> i actually had this whole thing written, and in that version Hank totally buys connor's story and is like ok yeah i'll help you out. but i think this makes more sense?? considering there are multiple endings where hank kills himself if connor stays a machine, i don't think he would get over everything he did just like that. 
> 
> (i'm so sorry)

**Author's Note:**

> hi! hope you enjoyed. just fyi i've got the next two chapters waiting to be edited so i should be able to post em one a week pretty consistently. we'll see though i'm pretty fcking slow
> 
> also, i know there are instances in canon of non-RK androids converting ppl, ie cyberlife tower, but i'm conveniently retconning them out because they don't show up in this timeline (?). so regular androids can go deviant themselves, but can't pass it on. also don't expect amanda to suddenly re-take control of connor's brain b/c a) that didn't happen in the dark timeline either and b) it was kinda dumb anyway


End file.
